5.5.09

The Garden Still

This week, I tried my hand at writing a villanelle. Last night, I shared it with my Eldest. The thought stayed with her, and today she handed me this, saying she enjoyed doing it because it was "like a puzzle."

"The Garden Still"

The garden stillthe wild roses bloomingand the air with leaves is filled

the trees on hillthe birds asleep, not singingthe garden still

the wild dillthe joy is ringingand the air with leaves is filled

the flowers bright untilthe end of summer's bringing the garden still

the strong wind willedthe colors dance uncaringand the air with leaves is filled

the fall comes tillthe snow starts driftingthe garden stilland the air with leaves is filled.

— by Sara

Okay, addendum. Two more poems arrived before bedtime. The first a villanelle, the second a sestina (sort of). On that point, let me just say that a sestina is complicated in terms of how end-words are supposed to be repeated in a certain way. Sara managed to begin to capture this by repeating the word 'sestina', 'this', 'word', 'anything', 'poem', 'wind' in a rolling fashion that pushed the repeated word further down into the stanza with each ensuing stanza. I'm going to italicize and bold the words so you can kind of see what she's done.

"Igloo (an almost nonsense villanelle)"

The sails unfurlthe cries ring in the air,the ship is on the waves of curls.